


No Sweeter Innocence

by SherlockWho



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual John, Demisexual Sherlock, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Minor Character Death, Virgin!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 03:46:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4464278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockWho/pseuds/SherlockWho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No Masters or Kings<br/>When the Ritual begins<br/>There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin"<br/>~Hozier, "Take Me to Church"</p>
<p>Sherlock was sent away to the Ukraine after he unraveled the riddle of the second coming of Moriarty, but an unexpected death brings him back to John.  Can they make sense of the holes in their lives and work through the consequences of their feelings for each other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Sweeter Innocence

**1\. The Giggle at A Funeral**

“Where’s John?” Sherlock barked, his head swiveled back over his left shoulder as both Mycroft and his assistant (Joanna today) dragged him down the hall leading into the depths of the Diogenes Club.  Mycroft shifted his grip, tightening it painfully around Sherlock’s bicep. _The club’s primary rule was silence, after all._

Sherlock had no fucks to give.  “Lestrade! Is he _here?_ ” he demanded of the man following closely behind.  Lestrade was scowling at him, but Sherlock had stopped noticing the scowl years ago.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft warned, his voice subsumed by the threatening hiss of a whisper. “Come along.  We mustn’t keep the officiant waiting.”

“The officiant can sod right off.”

“Come on, Sherlock,” Lestrade said, mischief in his tone.  “It’s your wedding day!”

Sherlock’s eyes suddenly felt hot. His mind flashed to a memory: Mary in her wedding finery, sipping wine and whining: _“It’s my wedding day!”_

He thought he would be sick.  On his wedding day.

 

**_SIX MONTHS EARLIER._ **

Sherlock was running, but it was already too late.  He was in the Ukraine, running terrorist counterintelligence for sodding _Mycroft_ and the MI5, and for right now he was safe—but he could hear the helicopters approaching over the next hill, and he knew his life was over.

To be honest, he’d known all along he wasn’t meant to survive this mission. There was no way the false Moriarty could have saved him from the consequences of killing Magnussen.  It was a reprieve, just a brief stay of execution, but it wasn’t a pardon. 

Yes, perhaps someone as bright as Sherlock Holmes could have figured out a way to stay in London, even after Moriarty’s cyber-phantom was laid to rest.  The problem was that John was miserable.  To Sherlock, the reason was crystal clear.

At first, it wasn’t so bad.  John was excited about the baby—here any day now!—and he was simultaneously glad to be trailing after Sherlock on the chase again.  Sherlock often reflected, somewhat ruefully, that it seemed possible for John to finally have it all: the illusion of normalcy, wife and child, as well as the dangerous razor’s edge he craved.

But it didn’t take long for Sherlock to see beyond that.  John wasn’t . . .right.  He was aloof whenever Sherlock asked about Mary.  He shifted his eyes away, shoved his hands in his pockets, and quickly changed the subject. 

Sherlock found himself mysteriously infuriated by this.

He had given up _everything_ , absolutely everything, for John to be happy at last.  He had given up his identity for two years to keep John safe.  He had given up his pride when he realized that not only was John capable of moving on—that he hadn’t been frozen in space and time during Sherlock’s absence—but he _had_ moved on, found an intriguing new partner and was making plans to spend the rest of his life with her.  So Sherlock threw himself into the best-friend-best-man act, being jolly with John and Mary, learning how to fold serviettes (a challenge worthy of ten minutes of his time, then a horrid dull parlour trick), planning seating arrangements (surprisingly enjoyable), and attending to the dozens of details that would give John the monument to romance that so many _ordinary_ people craved.  He buried his outrage at this utter _aberration_ of How the World Should Work and gave John what he wanted.

He was even startled at himself when he blurted out the secret that Mary had been trying to keep from even herself: The Baby.

Because if nothing else was capable of finally closing the door to the Old Life at Baker Street, that had done it.  Sherlock found himself utterly alone as the Watsons waltzed away from him at their wedding reception, surrounded by strangers and by friends who would someday become strangers, and he couldn’t bear it.  The only duty left to him as the best man was to ensure the happy couple safely embarked on their honeymoon, but he didn’t think they would notice if he wasn’t there for that.

So he spent a month with a needle in his arm, pondering his new direction—and slowly becoming aware of a new master villain creeping around his periphery.  Magnussen.  Intriguing.

John, spoiling for a fight, for a fix, found him this way, and the whole bloody thing went from the gay pastels of a wedding to the macabre hues of a morgue astoundingly quickly.  Mary, or the woman he knew as Mary, had successfully kept a huge secret—from _him_ , from Sherlock Holmes, never mind from the man she lived with and slept with and married.  It had been an unbelievable, astounding realization, but in the overall scheme of things, at least for the short term, it was crucial that John remain with Mary, or whatever her name was, who had put a bullet in him, so the game of ending Magnussen’s reign of shame and terror could play out.

And it had played out.  He remembered that in the here and now as he fell to his knees before the strobing lights of Ukrainian—or, more likely, Russian—helicopters, and remembered Mycroft’s panicked face behind the windshield of another helicopter as Sherlock gazed at John’s face, made his choice, and pulled the trigger. 

The choice was easy, in the end.  It was the only way the great drama of their friendship could have ended, after all.  John deserved his shot at happiness after everything Sherlock had put him through.  Besides, there had never been any doubt that Sherlock would have ended up alone eventually.  Sure, he’d had a fleeting thought (or two) of a white-washed cottage in Sussex and beekeeping and having the Watsons round occasionally to chat about the Old Days, but that was wishful thinking at best.  This was cold hard reality and, even though Sherlock knew no one could accuse him of being a good man, just once in his life he wanted to do something noble, something with some sort of meaning beyond silencing the clamour in his head.

So he traded everything he was and would ever become for an assignment from Mycroft that would spell his death.  And even though Moriarty’s digital ghost had deferred that for a bit, it turned out to be just long enough for Sherlock to realize that sometimes, facing your fate with dignity was better than knowing the truth of what you left behind: namely, a sullen Dr. Watson who came along with him to find this cyber-nemesis and didn’t seem at all happy with his life, despite the fact that he would soon be a father and surely that was something he should be celebrating, not mourning.

Sherlock closed his eyes.  It was almost peaceful, these last moments of his life.  He’d known almost from the beginning that the Russians would find him and that they wouldn’t be too pleased about the intelligence he’d smuggled out of the Ukraine, and he knew the consequences.  It would be as if he’d never been born.  He would vanish.

He tried to imagine that nothingness now, that void into which he’d disappear, and he thought of John, the John from Before, in a striped jumper, sipping tea and chiding him about the strange smell coming from the microwave, an affectionate gleam in his slate blue eyes.

_John, my John.  Though it will never be known, I loved you above all things. Be well, John. Be happy._

“Sherlock Holmes?” blared from a handheld loudspeaker.

That was not a Russian accent.  That was an incredibly familiar posh English accent.

Sherlock scrambled to hide his hope behind a scowl.  “Mycroft, your timing is execrable.  I’m in the middle of dying.  What do you want?”

“I’m taking you home.”

“For what possible purpose?”

“Mary Watson and her baby are dead.”

 

* * *

 

John sat in the front pew during his wife’s funeral, furiously trying to hide his smile.

It wasn’t a good smile.  It wasn’t a relieved smile.  There was no relief in him.  He was a flawed man, but not so flawed that he could rejoice in the end of a dream.  His smile was dark and hard and sharp, and it was directed wholly at his dead wife.

_You bitch you goddamn liar you lying bitch you couldn’t have found a way to wait just two more weeks until our baby was born before you went off on some insane errand to clear your name_

But why was he even a little surprised?  The people he loved always found a way to leave him, in the end.  They buggered off to every corner of the globe, they did reckless things that endangered him, and somehow it was always his fault.

_Why is it always my fault_

His gaze shifted two feet to the tiny white coffin.  A girl.  It had been a girl that Mary had strangled in her womb as she bled out in some dingy back-alley bar in Edinburgh.  They had agreed on so little after Sherlock had been taken from him— _again_ —but they had definitely agreed that if they’d had a girl they would name her Sheryl Louise Watson.  So dammit, that was going to be the name on the tombstone.

_Yes a bloody tombstone I don’t care what_ other _people do with their dead fetuses mine’s going to have a proper bloody tombstone_

Because, no matter what else, Sheryl had never actually decided to leave him.  She deserved whatever he could give her.

His smile splintered into a grimace and a strange sob broke free of him.  Huh.  He hadn’t known that was there.  He could have sworn he was completely numb inside, but no, something about the thought of somebody choosing to stay with him—that was so novel it broke whatever wall he’d put up between himself and the situation that led to this horrid place and time.

_My fucked up life my fucked up heart my fucked up future_

Oh, his future.  John had nearly forgotten. What would that look like now?  No wife, no baby—and Sherlock, off again on another ridiculous adventure, no doubt.  He hadn’t heard from Sherlock in weeks, not since they’d solved the cyber-riddle of a resurrected Moriarty.  Sherlock, who introduced him to the concept that the dead didn’t stay dead in his world.  He started the lesson with his own plunge from the rooftop of St. Bart’s and completed it when, after his return, he’d confessed about Irene Adler’s non-death. 

John’s mind unhelpfully flashed to an image of himself earlier in the week, demanding to see Mary’s body in the morgue, shoving the mortician aside and pulling open the drawer—and finding her there, two bullet holes marring her snowy, cutting beauty, an ugly, bloody wound in her shoulder ( _like mine, so like mine)_ , used to incapacitate her so she would drop her gun, and another, smaller, neater and, at least from the front, cleaner hole, right in the center of her forehead.  He’d fallen to his knees, eyes flashing to her abdomen, which was flat and loose under the thin robe worn by all new corpses.  Empty.

Just like his life, now.

But maybe . . .maybe Sherlock would come back.  Maybe it wasn’t as grim as Mycroft made it sound, the second and most recent time John saw him off on a private jet for some super-secret mission for the British government.  Mycroft, standing on the tarmac, fussing with the handle of his umbrella and avoiding John’s eyes:

_“It’s not, er, a certainty, John, that you will ever see Sherlock again.”_

_“What are you talking about?  You’re just as much of a drama queen—”_

_“It would be best for all concerned if you were to forget him.”_

_“That’s impossible—”_

_“Good day, Dr. Watson.”_

Mary hadn’t been there.  Mycroft and his stern eyes had disappeared in a long black sedan, and John had smiled for exactly three minutes until he realized Sherlock wasn’t coming back.

And now—oh, God, now something different was building in his chest, a wild hysteria at the prospect that Sherlock wouldn’t be coming back.  He’d briefly entertained the notion that day after he’d returned home to his wife, who’d blithely continued decorating the nursery and told him to forget Mycroft, what did he ever know, Sherlock had _drugged_ Mycroft on Christmas Day, for God’s sake . . .but what if?  What if John was all alone again?  What if Sherlock wouldn’t be coming back?

What if Sherlock was . . .dead?

John’s eyes flitted back up to the closed coffin, the big one, and he let out a thin, high whine.  His sister was sitting on his left and Mike Stamford was sitting on his right, and they each took one of his arms and pressed into him, swaddling him in pity.

He didn’t remember anything after that, not until the next morning, his head swimming in Scotch and beer and Harry sleeping on the couch in the living room, her indelicate snores drifting through the flat with the now-useless nursery.  He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids and wondered, _What now?_

  

* * *

 

Sherlock arrived at John and Mary’s—no, strike that— _John’s_ flat early in the morning.  His hair was still long and filthy, and it occurred to him that this is the way he should have approached John the last time, filthy, bloody, and very obviously desperate to see him again.  The time it had taken to endure Mycroft’s medical staff, his grooming, and his debriefing protocols had cost him precious time—

_No_.

It was stupid to think that if he had blown back into John’s life as a filthy mess it would have made a difference to their narrative.  It was foolish.  But to be fair, Sherlock entertained so few foolish thoughts, surely in the privacy of his Mind Palace he was allowed one?  Or two.  Or, hell, when it came to John Watson, there was a whole wing full of whimsical nonsense in his mind palace.  It was becoming a bit unwieldy.

He stopped at the door and took a deep breath.  Who was on the other side of the door?  Was it Grieving John or In Denial John?  Was he angry?  Was he even here?

Sherlock shook it off and knocked on the door.

“Who is—“

Harry Watson, whom he’d only met once before, stood in front of him, and her demeanor went cold and clinical.  “You bastard.  She’s barely cold in the ground and—”

“Harry?” John’s frail voice floated through the open doorway.  Sherlock closed his eyes against the pain he heard.  “Who is it?”

She grimaced, then refocused on Sherlock.  “You will not—”

“Harry?” John’s wan face appeared over her shoulder.  He fixed his gaze on him and Sherlock saw it all, every new wrinkle, the pain, the horror, and it hit him so hard he rocked back on his heels.

John shoved Harry aside and rushed forward, collecting Sherlock against himself and clinging to him as though he were his only chance at sanity.  “Don’t go,” he whispered.  “Sherlock.”

“I’m here,” he said.

  

* * *

 

At some point John found himself on his couch, a blanket over him. His hand was gripping Sherlock’s hand, knuckles white.  He didn’t remember getting to the couch, just clutching Sherlock and moaning into his neck.

He surfaced back to this reality, blinking his eyes and trying to regulate his breathing.

“John.”

Sherlock was a rumpled, filthy mess.  His hair was far too long and his face was dirty.  Even his hands, usually kept surgically clean and immaculately groomed, sported broken nails and grime on his cuticles.  Sherlock never let anyone see him like this, not anyone, and John saw the moment that Sherlock realized how he must appear: his eyes flickered, then closed, and his face turned away.

John wasn’t having it.  He’d seen Sherlock in so many different masks: high-functioning sociopath, drug addict, charming stranger, corpse.  He didn’t want to see this self-conscious wraith one moment longer than was necessary.  “So, where have you been, hey?”

Sherlock’s eyes opened and he became absorbed in studying the ragged fingernails on the hand not clasped in John’s own.  “Ukraine.”

John closed his eyes and nodded.  “Right.  How long?”

“Since I left.”

John opened his eyes again and found Sherlock’s own gaze fixed on his once again.  “You didn’t contact me once.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Were you—would you ever have?”

“No.”

“And . . .why are you here now?”

Sherlock’s gaze faltered.  “I was told.  Mary.”

John’s jaw grew tense and he pressed his lips into a thin line.  “So.  Yeah, I see.  You came back because . . .not for me, but because—“

“John.”  Sherlock sighed and his head dropped to his breastbone.  “Is it not enough that I’m here?”

“You wouldn’t be, if it was just for the sake of our friendship.”

Sherlock’s eyes caught fire.  “That’s preposterous.  This is entirely because of our friendship, that I’m here.”

“No,” John groaned, pushing himself up to sitting on the couch.  His voice felt thick.  “It’s _pity_.  You, off on another adventure, alone again because why bother even asking if your best fucking friend would want to come along, surely he just gets in the way, and you . . .wouldn’t have . . .you wouldn’t have even _contacted_ me again, you said.  You would have stayed gone forever, but you _felt sorry for me_ and you came rushing back to—what?  Just to turn around and leave forever again?”

Sherlock’s face grew still and cold, but then he sighed.  It was very much like watching a man become a statue and then become a man again.  “No.  I’m not leaving again.”

“You can’t promise that.”

Sherlock forcibly removed his hand from John’s still white-knuckled grip.  “I can.”  And he could, because Mycroft had told him so, said that he’d arranged it with the Queen herself that his brother could be pardoned.

“No, you can’t, you bloody great child.  You love it too much, being Sherlock Holmes.”

“Yes, and there is no Sherlock Holmes without John Watson.”

John stopped speaking altogether and gaped at Sherlock.  It was obvious Sherlock hadn’t meant to say that out loud; his mouth closed so forcefully John heard his teeth click together, his jaw clenched, and he seemed to be having difficulty swallowing.  He blinked so often John was afraid he was going to short-circuit.

“Sherlock—”

“Forget it.  Forget—delete it.”

“No, I absolutely will not.”

Sherlock blinked one final time, hard, and refocused.  He seemed marginally reassured by something on John’s face—probably the smile he wasn’t completely able to suppress—and gave him a small smile of his own.

“Well then.  Do you fancy another adventure?  The two of us against the world?”

John smiled.

And from a dark corner of the room in a flat he once shared with his pregnant wife, Harry Watson scowled.

 

 

* * *

 

**2.** **In the Madness and Soil**

John Watson was never meant to mourn.

Sherlock understood that now.  He was sprinting down a long alley in the dead of night, John’s own footfalls ringing behind him.  He felt younger.  He felt alive.  And he was fairly confident John felt exactly the same way.

“Left!” He called, spotting the footprints of their suspect in the fresh rain, displaced water telling tales on the person who had so recently violated the hush of midnight.

John swerved after him, huffing breath into their own secret form of laughter.  “You’re a nutter,” he grunted.

“Hush, you idiot,” Sherlock answered, his own form of endearment, then skidded to a stop.  He brought his gloved finger to his lips, then pointed up to where the fire escape above them was swaying.

John, silent as a cat, pulled his gun from the small of his back and pressed the muzzle against his own lips.  His eyes were twinkling. 

Sherlock had never loved him more.

“Carl Hunter,” Sherlock shouted, and John rolled his eyes and pressed himself against the wall to his left, his eyes scanning for any sign of threat from above.  “We know you’re here.  Throw down the diamond and we’ll let you go on your way.”

John’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

Sherlock gave him a brief frown.  “For another day, at least.”

John huffed.

Sherlock couldn’t believe it.  Just a week ago he’d returned from almost certain death in the Ukraine, returned to what, at first glance, had been a broken John Watson—and now here they were, exchanging light-hearted endearments in a back alley while waiting for a common criminal to—

A shot rang out in the darkness, and Sherlock’s first impulse was to look at John _because there was no way this petty thief would have a gun . . ._

John was a blur of motion as he pushed Sherlock against the wall opposite from the one he’d been pressed against.  He flattened himself against Sherlock’s body, the hand not grasping the gun clamping down over Sherlock’s mouth.

“ _Not one word_ ,” John hissed into his ear.

Sherlock’s mind blanked, all of his protests ( _Of course not, John, your hand is on my mouth, what would I say to a thief who apparently would very much like to become a murder suspect, do you really think he won’t notice us plastered against this wall?)_ dying a slow death on his tongue.  His mouth felt dry.  He could smell John all around him, his musk amplified by his excitement, and Sherlock felt lightheaded.  In an attempt to right his reality he took a deep breath—and caught the scent of _John_ and _gun_ and the glint of steel and navy blue irises.  He could barely process the singular beauty of this moment.

“Step away from him.”

Sherlock saw the color drain from John’s face.  They knew that voice.  John didn’t move.

“I _said_ step away, John.”

John finally moved, but he didn’t move away.  He turned around, now pressing his back along Sherlock’s front.  While under other circumstances this experience would serve to inform any number of fantasies for Sherlock, this moment could hardly have been less horrifying.

“Harry.”  John’s voice was cold slate.

Sherlock peered over John’s shoulder at Harry Watson.  The sight of her stopped his heart: there she stood, blonde hair tucked under a black knit cap, her body outlined in a black bodysuit.  Her eyes were cold and dead.  She was the resurrected Mary Morstan-Watson, back to revenge herself on a man who should have mourned her.

“Harry.”

“Step.” The sound of the safety being disengaged.  “Away.”

“No.  Nope.  Not going to happen.”

“I will fire.”

“No you won’t, not as long as I’m standing here.”  John pressed himself more tightly against Sherlock.  “And I’m prepared to stand here all night.  I can piss standing up, Harry.  Think about that.”

The report of the gun in the small space of the alley ricocheted in Sherlock’s head.  Lights began to flicker on in the surrounding flats.

“Tut tut, you’ve woken the neighbors.  You have three minutes to hand over the diamond and get out of here,” Sherlock said.  “We won’t identify you as the culprit.  We’ll say he got away—”

Harry laughed bitterly.  “Trying to protect me, Sherlock, the same way you protected Mary?”  She stepped closer.  “See how well that worked out.”

“Harry, step back,” John said, and he seemed to finally remember that he was holding his gun.  He tried bringing his arm around to engage her in a Mexican standoff, but his hand was shaking. 

_Odd, that_ , Sherlock thought to himself.  He couldn’t remember the last time John was unsteady under pressure.

“He _promised_ her,” Harry said, her face twisting in a grimace.  “She told me all about your little _vow_.”  She was glaring at Sherlock with John’s eyes, and wasn’t that just cosmic justice?  “She said she was able to sleep better, ever since that promise.”

“Why do you care?” John asked.  “You didn’t even bother coming to our _wedding_!  Why all this—“

“My . . .my niece,” Harry gasped, and suddenly Sherlock saw it, a swarm of words, of long-ignored clues, circling her head like a cloud of accusations. 

_Barren_

_Clara also infertile_

_Desperate for a child_

_Bonded to Mary once she knew about the baby_

_All the gifts in John’s nursery from Harry_

“You aren’t avenging Mary.  You’re avenging Sheryl.”

“A right genius, just as John said.  Yeah, I guess I am.  It’s not right, you know?  You should have protected her—”

“I was in the Ukraine getting shot at by the Russians.”

“Which I’m sure had nothing to do with that _vow_ of yours.  Such big pretty words you used at the wedding.  Mary told me about your big, pretty words.”

“Actually, _vow_ is a very small—”

“Sherlock.”  John’s voice was tight.

“What?”

“ _Timing_ ,” John hissed, and it took Sherlock back in time to before the fall from St. Bart’s.

“No, no, don’t stop him,” Harry drawled. 

The sound of sirens interrupted them.

“Not much time, Ms. Watson.  If you’re planning a getaway, now’s the time—”

“I don’t want to get away,” she said.  “I want to spend the rest of my life in jail for killing Sherlock Holmes.”

John tensed, his body a wire of anxiety.  “Harriet—”

“John, for the last time, step away.  I’m not as good a shot as you are and, even though I’m aiming for his head, I might hit—”

The next thirty seconds were a blur that seemed to stretch forever.  John apparently realized Sherlock’s height disadvantage a half second before Harry voiced it, and he grabbed at Sherlock’s coat sleeve, tugging down, trying to force Sherlock to his knees behind him.  Sherlock simultaneously pushed John away, because it was completely logical to do so: Harry wasn’t a crack shot, and it was almost a certainty that she would hit John, and that was a possibility that couldn’t be borne.  She raised her gun, but suddenly she was trembling as wildly as John had been just a moment ago—while John, wonderful, magnificent John, had steadied completely, his arm like stone as he answered her threat with one of his own.

Two shots, nearly simultaneous.  Sherlock had closed his eyes, fully expecting to feel the death blow, already determining that he would fall backwards as he had in Magnussen’s office, the same reason to do it, to live as long as he could . . .

But no, there was no pain.  There was only the delayed realization that of the two other people in the alley, one was screaming and the other was entirely too silent.

Sherlock blinked his eyes open to see Harry Watson crawling in his direction, her forearm bleeding copiously. 

John was slumped against Sherlock’s legs, his head bowed forward, his gun dropped to his hip. 

“John?” Sherlock whispered.  “John, get up.  The Met.  They’re almost here.”

Harry wailed an answer on behalf of her brother.  She draped herself over his still form.

“John, get up,” Sherlock insisted, because this, this wasn’t happening, this couldn’t happen, he was supposed to come back to make sure John didn’t grieve, not to make sure John ended up—

Then Sherlock was in motion, flinging Harry away, falling to his knees and guiding John back down onto his back on the pavement.  There was a new wound in John’s right thigh, but it was bleeding far too much, femoral artery, morbidity within five minutes if

He wasn’t going to think that way.  He ripped the belt from his pants and wrapped it around John’s thigh, cinching it closed with a brutal yank.  John lurched and his eyes opened.

“Sherlock.”

“Shut up,” Sherlock growled.  He snatched his scarf from around his neck and pressed down on the blood, trying to force it back into John’s body, tourniquet be damned.

“You alright?” John asked.  His voice seemed thin and breathy, and it hitched when Sherlock pressed down again.

“I said shut up.”

“John!” Harry screamed, and it reminded Sherlock of Mary screaming at the bonfire.  He wanted to slap her for bringing Mary back from the grave, for shooting him in the heart, because if John was anything, he was Sherlock’s heart, and if he died, surely Sherlock would also.

“You shut up, too.”

“Sh’lock, lisn’me,” John slurred.  Sherlock shook his head, but John smiled, a glorious, toothy grin, and it stilled Sherlock at once.  “I din’tell you b’fore, you din’t let . . .me, before you . . .”  John shook his head. 

It was becoming painfully obvious that John was bringing his incredible concentration to bear on whatever it was he was trying to say, and as long as John was focused on that and not on dying, on keeping his mind awake, and keeping himself together long enough to say what needed saying—then why on Earth would Sherlock interrupt him?  He would let him recite the Magna Carta if it meant there was more time.  “Go on,” Sherlock murmured, his hand closing around John’s wrist.

“You saved my life,” John said, very clearly.  “So many times, Sh’lock.  Madman.  My madman.”  John’s hand flexed, his wrist in Sherlock’s grip.  The pulse there fluttered weakly.

“Keep talking,” Sherlock whispered.  John’s eyes were flickering.  From seemingly too far away he heard Lestrade’s voice yelling to let the paramedics through.  “You just keep talking.  Tell me everything, your whole life story, recite War and Peace, just—please.”

“Love you,” John whispered back, with the flicker of a smile.  “Thank you.  I. I love.”

John fell silent and stopped breathing.  Sherlock pressed into him and started to breathe on his behalf, mouths sealed together in the most hopeless form of a kiss ever conceived.

In the end, they had to drag Sherlock off of his doctor, and he shouted and screamed and clawed at them to let him go, let him be with John, don’t let Harry near him—

But she was family, after all, and she had the right, and besides, John’s shot to her arm needed bandaging, so Sherlock was left behind with a bemused Detective Inspector Lestrade, who was making some form of noise about statements and witnesses and gunshots at one in the morning.

Sherlock didn’t care.  The man who had died in his arms had told him he loved him.  Now that man had to come back.

He pushed past Lestrade and said, “You’ve just put John’s murderer in an ambulance with him.  She has the diamond Dimmock is looking for in one of her pockets.  Her gun is by your right foot.  John shot her in self-defence.  If you need any other information you’ll have to wait until either John is back in Baker Street or at least a week after his funeral service.  You shouldn’t need anything else, however, since this crime scene is lousy with all the evidence you’ll need.”

And with that he turned away and ordered a taxi to follow the ambulance’s wail.

 

 

* * *

 

**3.** **Worship Like a Dog**

John dreamed.

He wasn’t sure if he was dead.  This wasn’t exactly what he expected from death—and yes, he’d allowed himself to form expectations for death, because more than once he thought he was going to meet his end, either by his own gun or because he couldn’t keep up with Sherlock’s madness.  When he’d thought about it lately, hell, just tonight as he’d chased after Sherlock on the heels of what he thought was a stranger, he was sure he’d be dumped directly into hell as punishment for allowing himself to so quickly be brought back from the edge of a certainly justifiable grief.  When he was bleeding out in the Afghanistan desert, he’d thought maybe he’d get a chance to see his Mum again, his own kind of heaven.

He didn’t expect this, to be standing in front of his wife in an empty white place, her arms full of a small cosy bundle, her appearance an almost perfect imagining of a new mother—

Except for the black hole in her forehead.

“Do you want to hold her?” she asked him, her voice flat despite her smile.

“I, er, no,” John said as politely as he could.

“She doesn’t have your eyes.”  Her monotone froze his blood.  “She doesn’t have your anything.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

“I know why you forgot about us,” she said softly, and for just a moment he thought she was becoming human again, flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, not a shell of a woman holding a dead infant in her arms.  The life drained from her in a rush before she spoke again.  “I was never real to you, was I?  Never real, just a placeholder, and then you found out about my lies and I became even less real.”

“You were real.”

“ _Don’t lie._ ” The change in her voice, from an empty monotone to a rabid hiss, caught him by surprise and he stumbled backwards a few steps.  “You don’t have to lie,” still the hissing noise, but calmer now.  “I know.  It was easy to let go of me, it was even easy to let go of her, because we were never real.”

“I didn’t want you to die.”  It was all he could think to say.

“But you didn’t really want me to live, did you?” she hissed, her accusation more cutting for its softness.  “You were already distancing yourself from me, following _him_ around again.  Do you know that’s why he got on the plane the second time?  So that I could become a real girl?”

“Mary, just stop it.”

“Hold your daughter, John.”

And why not?  This may be his only chance.  He took a few steps closer to her.

She smiled, and it was a genuine smile because it was a nasty smile.  “I know that she’ll be real to you now.”

He should have understood what that meant right away, but he didn’t understand until he looked into the baby’s face and saw vacant silver eyes staring through a blood-streaked face at nothing, brown curls rendered black with blood.

**

John woke with a cough that had intended to be a scream.  Something was in his throat, and he felt bound down, wires and

_A bomb vest_

But . . .no.  That steady beeping wasn’t a bomb.  Bombs are rarely so noisy.  They usually count down in silence, like the one on the tube car after Sherlock’s return.

“John?”

He turned his head to the left, eyes wide—to find Sherlock sitting at the edge of an uncomfortable hospital chair.

“Don’t try to speak,” Sherlock said softly, and when had he grown so old?  John saw it now, in the absence of glamour that a hospital alone can provide: the dark circles under Sherlock’s eyes, the deepened crow’s feet, the wrinkled brows.  “You’re intubated and, as much as I’d like to hear your voice scolding me for nearly getting you killed, I don’t think it will be very effective.”

John wondered idly if he had actually said some of the things his mind was trying to remind him he’d said to Sherlock, or if it was mere pre-death delusions.  He wished he could ask.

“John, the reason behind everything I’ve tried to accomplish over the past four years was to keep you safe and happy.  I admit I wasn’t always able to understand what would make you happy, in the early days, but I tried . . ..”  Sherlock’s voice was smooth, but then it seemed to hit a rough patch.  Despite this, he kept talking.  “You can’t allow one of your relatives to try to remove you from my side . . .you can’t . . .don’t you understand?”

John shook his head.  His vision swam.  He thought it might be tears, an involuntary reaction to the emotion currently breaking over his best friend’s face.

_It would be worth a thousand such wounds to see that look on your face, Sherlock._

“I fell from St. Bart’s to _protect_ you, to keep you from being killed by one of Moriarty’s snipers.  I shot Magnussen to keep him from endlessly torturing you and your family.  I sent you back to your wife and got on the first plane, going to my _death_ , John, so you could be free of me and you could live your life.  I got on the second plane for the very same reason.”

John closed his eyes again.  This was too much.  He’d never asked, he’d never thought anything of the sort.  He’d just assumed that Sherlock had left him repeatedly for his own reasons, because he was Sherlock and who could ever know what was going on in his funny little head?  John has just assumed that the simple domesticity of Baker Street, while very satisfying for him, had been far too dull for Sherlock’s mad genius, and he’d taken himself away for a wild adventure.

But . . .death?  He’d been going to his death?  John shook his head.  It didn’t make any sense.  Why would Sherlock willingly give up the gift of his mad genius for his sake, to save _his_ life?  John didn’t have false modesty; he knew his life was worth something, had to be.  There was no way he could have been blessed with the thrills he’d experienced, the highs and the lows, if it was worthless.  But measured against the greatness of the man staring earnestly into his very soul, it was nothing.  Nothing at all.

“You don’t believe me,” Sherlock whispered, his lips drawing into a small oh of epiphany.  “You don’t believe that I would have died, protecting you.”

John closed his eyes and shook his head.  God, he wished he could talk, because Sherlock was not understanding him.  He would speak his mind clearly: _I believe you’re crazy enough to do it, somehow, but I don’t believe it would be worth it, not when I know this time I would follow you to hell to try to bring you back._

Sherlock was furious.  He turned his back to John, and for a desperate moment John was sure Sherlock would grab his coat and leave—but no.  His movements were jerky, frantic, and John couldn’t figure out what he was doing until he ripped his shirt off of himself—

His back.  Oh, god, Sherlock’s back.  It was a maze of scars: deep gauges, burn marks, ragged striations telling horrifying tales of torture.  The marks on his best friend’s once-pristine back burned their way through his retinas and directly into his living memory.  He would never forget them.  He would never forget how he felt, this moment, seeing them: shame, rage, and enough regret to choke him with sorrow.

“Two layers.  The first was in Serbia, after I was caught by a covert government agency running out of funds because Moriarty was no longer available to buy them off.  The second layer was just a few months ago; I escaped that lot, but I was being hunted and I knew—if Mycroft hadn’t pulled me out because of . . .I knew.”

Sherlock grows silent, his back rising and falling with hitched breaths, his hands trembling at this sides.

“I’m not . . .I’m not good at this sort of . . .thing,” Sherlock stammered, his wrist flicking the words into the room.  “I don’t say these things, but John, they let Harry ride in the ambulance with you, they let her be your next-of-kin, and.  I couldn’t.”  Sherlock forced himself to take a deep breath, then turned around to face John again.  His eyes were shimmering, bright with unshed tears.  “She does not bear the scars of trying to protect you.  She was not at your wedding, when I used my _big, pretty words_ to make my vow to you.  She was the one who _shot_ you, John.”  Sherlock gasped in another deep breath and closed his eyes.  “I understand that you do not want to live in Baker Street with me, but I cannot bear this another day.  I have never had a . . .a friend, not like this, never before.  I can’t abide trying time and again to keep you safe if I am not allowed to be the one to see you through to the other side, to be your caretaker.”

John sighed and turned his attention to the blankness of the white acoustic tiles over his head.  So it had come to this, now, in this hospital bed, he was meant to decide the rest of his life.  This wouldn’t be a provisional arrangement, offering Sherlock the option to be his caretaker.  Sherlock was, and always would be, an all-or-nothing sort of man, and he would commit himself to the long-term.  John had seen that commitment carved deep in the lines on his back.  Sherlock would be determined to keep an eye on him as close to full time as John would allow, and he would bully his way back into John’s living space, wherever John decided that would be.

But who else did he have?  His mother and his wife were dead, his father was living out the last of his senility in a care facility in Glasgow, and his sister was probably in jail—those details would be coming soon, he was sure.  He knew now he could never trust her, certainly not as his next-of-kin in case another emergency cropped up.

He opened his eyes and looked at Sherlock.  Emergencies would keep cropping up if he kept chasing after this madman.  And he could not stop, he knew that.  He hadn’t been lying when he said what he said, perched at the edge of death: Sherlock had saved his life by putting it in danger, but it had been his sister who had pulled the trigger.  As long as he was determined to watch Sherlock’s back, it was only fair to give him the legal authority to do the same.

He needed to say it, then.  He needed to make his own vow, in return.  He needed to pull down the final wall, destroy the last thing that kept them separated. 

He frantically pantomimed a pad of paper and a pen, and Sherlock, brilliant Sherlock, had them in hand before John had finished his demonstration.  John scribbled frantically and handed the paper over to Sherlock.

_I’m coming back to 221B_

Sherlock nodded and a tear fell from his eyes.  John pulled the paper back and wrote again.

_Legal power of attorney?_

Sherlock frowned.  “That would take a while.”

_What then?_

Sherlock sucked both of his lips into his mouth, his eyes frowning at John.

_Out with it._

Sherlock sighed.  “Marriage.”

John startled and dropped the paper and pen.

“No, no, don’t get like that.  Platonic, don’t you see?  We go on as we have, sharing space, solving cases, but with the legal understanding that I will be allowed to be—I will be allowed to assist you, in situations like this.”  Sherlock gestured expansively at the hospital room.

John recovered the paper and pen and scribbled.  _And I would be allowed to do the same._

Sherlock nodded.

_Mycroft will not approve._

“Mycroft suggested it.”

John blinked.  This can’t be real life.  He must be dead.  None of this made sense in the reality to which he’d reconciled himself.  This was a land through the looking glass, where overprotective all-powerful big brothers advised their clever little brothers to platonically marry their damaged army doctors.

Sherlock smirked.  “Don’t misunderstand.  Mycroft is facing a promotion and needs more time to wire-tap and conduct covert operations and all other such . . .nonsense.”

_Mycroft would quit his job if he thought he could better govern you._

Sherlock read this and arched a brow at John.  “I suppose he feels he can entrust that solemn duty to you.”

John started writing again, but Sherlock clapped his hand down over the pen.  “John, this is becoming tedious.  If you do not feel we can sustain this . . .arrangement for the rest of our lives, just say so and I will drop the entire thing.  I know you will still seek companionship from women, and I raised this objection with Mycroft when he posed the suggestion in the first place.  He felt that, regardless of this, er, preference of yours, it would still be worth a mention.”  Sherlock turned abruptly and started pulling his shirt back on.  “Please forget I mentioned it.”

_There would be no Sherlock Holmes without John Watson,_ whispered a trembling baritone from the back of his mind _._

This would be twice now Sherlock tried to take back his words, words that made him vulnerable.  And this would be twice that John would not allow him to do that.

_No, I absolutely will not_ John wrote on the paper, and he tapped Sherlock on the arm with the hand holding the note as Sherlock buttoned up the last button on his shirt.

Sherlock glanced down at the paper and gave John a sad smile.  “Consider carefully, John.  I will be far more discriminating in screening your potential future wives.  After all, I would only divorce you for someone thoroughly worthy of you.”

John nodded, then wrote six words and gave the paper over to his fiancé.

_Yes, I will marry you, Sherlock._

Sherlock tried, John could see he tried, but he could not stifle his grin of triumph.

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock was peering into his microscope, and to the wide world he was sure he looked engrossed in his experiment—but he wasn’t.  He was closely monitoring John.

John who was reclined on his sofa, mildly uncomfortable because of the wound in his leg no matter how he repositioned himself.

John, who would have an authentic limp now, likely for the rest of his life.

John, who hadn’t hesitated to repopulate the spaces of 221B with his belongings and his presence.

John, his . . .fiancé.

Sherlock was secretly thrilled and secretly disgusted with himself for being so thrilled.  It was a romantic fantasy come alive, sure, but it was _just_ a fantasy.  This wasn’t happily ever after, dammit.  It was a concession born of necessity.  It could never be anything else.  John wasn’t gay.  Hell, Sherlock wasn’t sure he was, either.  Homosexuals are sexually attracted to members of their own sex.  Sherlock had never been sexually attracted to anyone but John Watson.  In fact, he found the rest of humanity rather repulsive.

John groaned as he swung his good leg off of the sofa, and Sherlock was immediately in motion.

“Stop.  You are not picking me up again.  I don’t care, Sherlock, it’s humiliating.”

Sherlock stopped dead, his right foot slowly lowering to the floor again.  “It’s practical.”

“Nope.”

“John.”

“No.  I can’t be . . .I won’t let you make me feel like . . .less.”

Sherlock looked at his best friend and suddenly understood.  Yes, he wanted to be John’s caretaker, perhaps more than he wanted anything—but he wasn’t taking very good care of John’s self-esteem, and that had been so easy, before.  He’d given John the space to run, he’d given John a reason to point his gun anywhere but at himself.  He couldn’t now take that away from him.

“Well, then.  While you’re up, I could use some tea.”  Sherlock carefully and pointedly made his way back to his microscope and sat down.

He could feel the warmth of John’s smile as he passed behind him.  “Lazy git.”

And he smirked as he gazed into the strange chemistry of his own blood.

 

* * *

 

 

“You’re really going to do it.”

John sighed and took another swig of the beer in front of him.  “Yep.”

Lestrade shook his head.  “This isn’t exactly the way I imagined this.”

“Yeah, well—wait.  You _imagined_ me and Sherlock . . .what?”

Lestrade shrugged and his voice gained volume, as it always did when he was trying to calm him down.  “Look, I’m not saying I enjoyed imagining it, and I stopped imagining it altogether when you and Mary, when . . .never mind.  But when I heard you were moving back to Baker Street, I thought maybe this could finally happen.”

“What exactly could finally happen?”

“John.”

“Greg?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“Because what’s actually happening is I’m giving up on ever having a love life, ever again.  And you know what?”  John took another deep pull from his pint.  “I’m fine with that.  I tend to be pants at picking out good women anyway, and now that I’m, well, not young anymore, I don’t imagine I’ll be entertained by any _women of quality_.”

Greg smirked as he stared blankly at the television on the other end of the bar.  “Giving up on a love life, that’s what you think you’re doing.”

“Isn’t it?  His Nibs will be a nightmare to any date I brought home, once we’re married.”

“John, for fuck’s sake.”

“What?”

“You do understand why, don’t you?”

“Why . . .what?”

Greg dragged his hand down over his face and groaned.  “Why does it have to be me to tell you this?”

“Greg, I am going to punch you in the face if you don’t—”

“Sherlock is in love with you.”

John’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click.  His brain felt like it was flipping onto its back.  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and asked, “What?”

“I’m not thick, no matter what that arsehole says about me,” Greg said, shifting his attention to the small bowl of nibbles in front of him.  “I’ve known him almost ten years, John.  I know how he was before you and I know how he’s been since you.  You have changed him.  You’re important to him.  And you somehow manage to be blind to the way he looks at you.  Jesus Christ,” Greg snapped, tossing peanuts back into the bowl and turning to face John, his eyes full of thunder, “he made the most beautiful best man speech I’ve ever heard, he disappeared to save you, he took a bullet from your wife and still sent you back to her to try to make you happy.”

John’s mind was racing.  “But . . .no!  That’s just very fond friendship!  He said, not my area, Greg.  It’s not his area—he doesn’t feel things—”

“He does.”

“No.”  John felt the beginnings of hyperventilating in his lungs.  _No.  He can’t.  He wouldn’t.  Even if he could, it wouldn’t be me._

“Yes.”

John got up from the barstool and nearly collapsed on his bad leg.  He caught himself before he hit the floor, grabbed his cane, and hobbled away from the bar.  He didn’t know where he was headed until he emerged into the night, gasping for fresh air.  He leaned against the brick wall of the pub and put his hands on his knees, trying desperately to recover to normal breathing.

His mind blew wide open and, without wanting it to happen, he started to see the entirety of their relationship from a new perspective:

_Sherlock invited me in; he didn’t invite anyone in, but he invited me. [compatibility?]_  
_Sherlock wanted me along on cases while he despised anyone else’s attempts to assist. [respect?]_  
 _Sherlock ruined my dates repeatedly. [jealousy?]_  
 _Sherlock disappeared for two years. [protection?]_  
 _Sherlock came back. [love?]_  
 _Sherlock’s best man speech. [declaration?]_  
 _Sherlock shot Magnussen. [defense?]_  
 _Sherlock left. [sacrifice?]_  
 _Sherlock came back. [compassion?]_  
 _Sherlock proposed . . ._

“Oh, God,” John gasped, burying his face in his hands.  All the effort he’d spent to reassure Sherlock that he wouldn’t be bothered by John’s emotions, his attraction, established so forcefully during that first “date” at Angelo’s . . .all the times he’d said to anyone who was listening that he wasn’t gay, all the ways he’d tried to express to Sherlock that he was safe, his marriage to his work wouldn’t be threatened—

_Oh my god, John, he proposed to you!  How could you not see?_

_You see, but you do not observe._

“John?”

John pulled himself upright, his heart bursting with unfettered, hopeful joy.  “Greg.”

“You alright, mate?”

“I’m absolutely wonderful,” John whispered, a grin unfurling on his face as he turned to face his friend. 

Greg gave him a doubt-ridden grin in return.  “Yeah?”

“If Sherlock is half in love with me as I am with him, then yes, I’m dead chuffed.”

Greg let out an involuntary bark of laughter.  “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck and averted his eyes.  “Right, well, I don’t have to know any details.”

John laughed, then sobered.  “I need your help.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.”

 

 

* * *

 

**4.** **Drain the Whole Sea**

Sherlock arrived home from an intense session with a cadaver at Bart’s to find a candle-lit flat that smelled faintly of lavender and roasted chicken.  He froze, his arm half out of his coat sleeve, and scanned the flat for John.

“Evening,” John chirped from the kitchen.

Sherlock gave him a skeptical look.  “Expecting someone?”

John smirked as he came around the corner.  “Just you.”

Sherlock blinked.  That smirk had been almost . . . _flirtatious_.  “Seems like a lot of trouble for just me.”

“Worth it.”  John approached, and Sherlock noticed that this John was . . .sexier.  His shirt fit close to his body and the sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, showing off his forearms to really impressive effect.  He smelled incredible.  His hair looked soft and shiny in the candlelight. 

Sherlock swallowed.  “Special occasion?”

“We’re getting married in three days.”  John’s limp was far less pronounced.  He seemed so . . .happy.  Joyful, even.

_That can’t be because of me._

“Procedural,” Sherlock muttered.  _John was being kind.  He shouldn’t feel obligated._

“Is it?  No need for it to be unpleasant.”  John winked.  “Come, eat.”

Sherlock shivered.  He couldn’t remember ever seeing John wink at him, and the simple act of it was so devastating he wasn’t sure he could remember how to walk.

_I have to get this under control, or John will see.  John will know._

“I, er.  I have to, um.”

“Come, eat.”  John took him by the wrist and helped him get out of his coat.  His hand brushed lightly against his shoulder and it felt like a scald.  He closed his eyes and tried to refocus as John put his coat away.

“John.”

John returned and took Sherlock’s wrist again, guiding him to the freshly scrubbed kitchen table.  The place settings had been arranged with care.  The roasted chicken was placed in the center of the table, and John made himself busy with pulling sides out of the oven and doling out servings to each of their plates.

“John.”

“Yes?” John set Sherlock’s plate in front of him and started carving off a slice of chicken.

_I can’t do this. Three-Continents Watson flirting with me is too much.  I can’t maintain my indifference.  Please don’t do this, don’t pity me and flirt with me, don’t settle for me._ “I’m not hungry.  I’m afraid you’ve wasted your efforts.”

John froze.  “Wasted?”

Sherlock was angry now.  It was every romantic fantasy come to life—John, looking like his own personal sex fetish, candlelight, dinner, _winking_.  And all because he’d given it away somehow, his bone-deep affection and devotion, and John was going to torture him and offer him anything he could tolerate out of _pity_.  Sherlock didn’t want pity any more than John did, perhaps even less. 

“Yes.”  He got up from his chair, the legs scraping loudly on the floor.  “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you, John, but this was entirely too much effort.  My transport doesn’t require the . . . _accoutrements_ of a marriage.  All it requires is basic sustenance, and far less often than the rest of you require it.  That could have been provided with takeaway; it did not require all of—” Sherlock gestured widely at the entire flat, “ _this_.  Now, I’m off.  I’ll be back in the morning, perhaps, certainly no later than our appointment with Mycroft three days from now.  I’ll be grateful to you if you’ll clean up this, this _mess_.”

“Sherlock . . .”

Sherlock froze halfway to the door, desperate to not have to flee, desperate for a joke, a taunt, some way this could be spun to not have been about pity.

John’s smile had evaporated.  He was once again every ounce the army captain instead of the irresistible lothario.  He looked—sad, somehow.  “Do you have your phone?”

Sherlock pulled it out of his trouser pocket and held it up for inspection.

John nodded.  “Don’t forget your coat.  If you get peckish tonight, I’ll have the leftovers in the fridge.  I won’t bother you again until the . . .wedding.”

John gave him one final sad smile and went upstairs.

Sherlock felt wrong-footed as he stood in their shared kitchen, staring at what was left of their shared meal.  He had ruined . . . something.  But he didn’t know what, and he didn’t know how, and he didn’t know why.

He left the flat.  Less than five minutes later he received a text.

**_JOHN: Did you take some food with you?_ **

_No. –SH_

**_JOHN: I’ll be in my room the rest of the evening.  Please come back and get some food._ **

_No. –SH_

**_JOHN: At least tell me you’re eating something, somewhere._ **

_Don’t be tiresome. –SH_

**_JOHN: I’m being conscientious._ **

_Marriage won’t change me. –SH_

**_JOHN: I don’t want you to change._ **

_What was that production meant to indicate, then? –SH_

**_JOHN: Celebration._ **

_Of what? –SH_

**_JOHN: I told you. Upcoming wedding._ **

_Why would we celebrate that?  It’s a simple legal transaction. –SH_

**_JOHN: If you wanted it to be a simple legal transaction, we should have done the power of attorney._ **

_Tedious. –SH_

**_JOHN: Weddings include vows.  You’re good at vows._ **

Sherlock nearly threw his phone against the wall of the bank he was walking by.  He heard Harry Watson sneering at him through John’s text: _big, pretty words._

_Don’t mock me. –SH_

**_JOHN: Eat something.  Sleep well.  I’ll see you in three days._ **

Sherlock turned off his phone and walked until 2 AM, then he went home and collapsed in bed.

 

* * *

 

 

For the next three days, the two of them went out of their way to avoid each other during their waking hours—but by the end of day two, John found himself completely unable to resist the temptation to enter Sherlock’s bedroom while he was sleeping.

He entered through the frosted glass door to the bathroom and perched on the edge of the bed, watching his madman sleep.  He reached out slowly, his fingers trembling as he made contact with Sherlock’s hair. 

He pulled his hand away and covered his eyes, barely stifling a groan.

“I loved Mary,” John mouthed, his whisper so hushed it was nearly inaudible.  “I loved what she tried to do for me.  I loved that she found me worth enough to try to pull me back from where you put me.  I thought she was healthier for me than you were, so I went ahead and married her.  But she wasn’t healthier for me.  There’s nothing in the world that’s healthy for me, because I want to be damned; as long as you’re hell, that’s where I want to be.”

He knit his fingers together so he could remember to not touch again.  “I don’t know if I can go through with this, as it is, Sherlock.  I kept it underground for a long time, because you told me _not your area_ and _married to your work_ , so I tried so hard.  I didn’t want you to worry that I’d inconvenience you, that I’d try to make this more than what you wanted.  What I wanted didn’t matter, as long as you were nearby and I could watch over you.”  He scratched his eyebrow and gave the sleeping man a half-smile.  “But Greg’s ruined it.  He made me think, maybe, you could love me, too.  And I want to believe it so much, but it’s not true, is it?  You don’t want . . .me, like that.  You are still married to your work, and marrying me is just a matter of convenience, making sure your assistant won’t leave you again.”

John stood up.  His chest ached and his leg hurt.  “And I’d do it.  I’ll do it.  I’ll speak my vows and I’ll let you destroy my heart, because I do love you, I love you more than my own sanity.  I’ll follow you anywhere because what else can I do but watch over you the way you’ve tried to watch over me?”

Sherlock was dreaming.  John could see it.  His eyes were twitching under his eyelids and his fingers spasmed against the sheets of his bed.  John smiled down at him and, throwing caution to the wind, he bent at the waist and gave him a kiss on the temple—but when he straightened again his face was tortured.  “God, how do I say the words to you when you don’t want to hear how much I’ll mean them?”

He clamped his eyes shut.  He wanted to crawl into Sherlock’s bed and hold him, but no matter what his REM cycle suggested, Sherlock wouldn’t be able to sleep through that.  He’d wake, and he’d know.

So John turned away and went upstairs to wait out the night and think of how he’d be able to keep his silence, keep his secret, for the rest of his life.

 

 

* * *

 

Sherlock dreamed.

He was at John and Mary’s wedding, but everything was dark, the guests were gone, the tables bare.  He turned around and around, trying to gather his thoughts.  This had been a sunny, lovely place, yellow and peach and happiness in the tones when he’d been here last—and now, it wasn’t.  It was barren and cold.

“Why am I here?” he asked into the ringing silence.

“ _I loved Mary_ ,” answered his favorite voice in the world.  He recoiled.  He didn’t want to have to go through this again, in this room where he’d had to offer his heart in words, words coated in a promise to protect.  “ _I loved what she tried to do for me._ ”

Sherlock suddenly found himself at his own faux grave, the site now erased of all evidence of his deception, the grave marker likely stored someplace practical where Mycroft could find it again, if he needed to.  He saw John on his knees in front of that marker, his fingers scrabbling in the dry dirt, Mary standing over him and trying to pull him away.  He tried to look away, but no one is ever so lucky in dreams, and no matter where he tried to refocus his attention he saw John, his teeth bared, his fingernails pulling back from the nail beds as he tried to dig Sherlock up with his bare hands.  “ _I loved that she found me worth enough to try to pull me back from where you put me._ ”  Dream-John collapsed against the cold black granite of the grave marker, murmuring, while Mary waited for this fugue to pass.

Sherlock frowned as he became aware of his dream, as he tried to wrestle control away from his own dark, sadistic subconscious.  He shook his head and the dream changed, back to that sunny reception hall.  The tables were covered and their guests were seated, and they were beaming at him, overjoyed for him as he stood next to John.

He grinned and turned to John, who was smiling back at him.  Sherlock was struck by how utterly lovely John was in this moment, radiant with happiness . . . _to be married to Sherlock._

“I don’t deserve you,” he said softly.

“ _I love you more than my own sanity,_ ” John answered him.  His lips didn’t move, but Sherlock knew this was a dream, so why would John’s mouth have to move?  Surely there were better things it could be doing.  He bent in for a sweet kiss that got just a little out of hand.  “ _I’ll follow you anywhere because what else can I do but watch over you the way you’ve tried to watch over me?”_

Their lips parted and Sherlock bent down to hide his face in John’s neck, feeling a bit shy of having let all of their friends witness how desperately he loved John.  John kissed his temple, softly, and for the first time in his life Sherlock felt loved.

It was a bit of a disappointment when he woke, alone.  And then it was a bit confusing when he remembered that he would be marrying John tomorrow.

“Right,” he mumbled to himself in his sleep-roughened voice.  “We’ll just get this over with.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock was in his full battle dress, a simple but perfectly-tailored black suit, aubergine shirt open at the collar, wedding rings tucked neatly in his trouser pocket.  Mycroft was standing beside him on one side and Lestrade was on the other side.  A minister was sitting in a nearby chair.

“Where is he?” he hissed at Mycroft.

_Diogenes_ , Mycroft mouthed at him in an attempt to preserve the silence.

“Asinine,” Sherlock said, “to attempt to perform a wedding in a silent venue.”

Mycroft gestured indulgently at Sherlock, then retrieved his phone from his coat pocket.  Whatever he read there made him stand up straighter and face the door.

Sherlock turned in time to see John enter.  He was neatly dressed in a black suit with a white shirt, but his face was stern and a little cold.

“John, good—”

“Shut up,” John said as he approached.  It was his warrior walk, all business and no compromise, and it made Sherlock hyper-aware of his surroundings; John employed that walk when he was serious, when there was business, when _the work_ became important.  Once Sherlock determined that there was no immediate threat (Gavin was never a threat, Mycroft was only here in an official capacity, and the minister’s danger only extended to the prostitutes he visited twice a week, and even then only because his spanking fetish exhausted their wrists), he returned his attention to John, who was mere steps away and not slowing at all.

John grabbed him by his arms, simultaneously pulling Sherlock down and extending to his full height, and planted a kiss on his lips.

Sherlock froze.  His mind was spinning, trying to locate a possible motive for this wonderful, singularly impossible moment.  He didn’t pull away—he _couldn’t_ pull away.  He was trapped by his own selfish want of this, of John’s kiss—but he couldn’t reciprocate, not without understanding why John was doing this.

John pulled away after an eternity, a microsecond, a mere moment.

“We haven’t got to that part yet,” Sherlock whispered.

“One thing, Sherlock,” John said and, when Mycroft tried to shush him, he glared at him so hard Mycroft moved back several steps.  “This is real.  Do you understand me?”  His slate blue eyes were boring deep into Sherlock’s soul.  “We get married for the right reasons or we don’t get married at all.  I’ll go after a lasting power of attorney for you.  I’ve read up on it and I’m comfortable with that.”

“Right . . .reasons?” Sherlock asked.

John nodded, a quick military flick of his chin.

“What are the right reasons?”

John sighed and pressed his temples with thumb and middle finger, then he straightened again.  Lestrade let out a short huff of laughter, earning him a glare from Mycroft.

“For love,” John said.  “You git.”

Sherlock blinked.  Then blinked again.  Then decided to keep blinking until reality made sense again.

This apparently amused John, who was helpless to the force of his own grin.

“You’re joking.”

John’s smile disappeared.  “No,” he sighed gustily.  “I’m not.”

“You’re here,” Sherlock murmured, trying to work out what was happening.  “You’ve set this condition, but you’re here, apparently ready to go through with it, even though your condition is . . .love.  Platonic love?  No, that can’t be what you mean, because we’ve each established that as a fact in our friendship prior to your marriage to Mary.”

“For God’s sake,” Mycroft muttered.

“Don’t talk,” Sherlock snapped before continuing and picking up speed.  “You prepared an elaborate meal several days ago, candlelight, which you associate with romance—”  here John blushed, “—which I remember from our first meal together at Angelo’s—”

“Where you told me you were married to your work.”

“Yes, I did.”  Sherlock frowned.  “And that’s important to you, here and now, and you approached me just now and you, you _kissed_ me.”

John nodded again.  “I did.”

“Why?” Sherlock asked.  “Why would you prepare a romantic dinner by candlelight and _kiss_ me?”

“Because I love you.”

Sherlock blinked.  “No, no, that’s not right.  Why would you love . . . _me?_ ”

Time stopped.  Sherlock looked at John, really looked at him, his heart open and exposed and trembling and afraid, and he saw John smile tenderly at him, just for him, and reality unwound and re-wound around him.

“I don’t talk about these things,” John said softly, “but I will tell you every day, just as I have every day since the day we met.”  Once again John had him by the arms, trying to steady him as Sherlock’s body vibrated with the new knowledge of what was happening in this strange little place.  “You’re _amazing_ , Sherlock.  You’re incredible.  And you . . .you saved me, saved my life, and, maybe, you’ve loved me as selflessly as anyone ever could, and I, I couldn’t believe you could, but you did, didn’t you, and I . . .”  John wrestled with his emotions and tried desperately to get them back under control.  “Yeah.  I want to spend my life with you, loving you and caring for you and letting you care for me, because I don’t have as much left of it as I’d like to have and we’ve wasted too much time as it is.  So, this is real, a real marriage between two people in love, or it’s nothing and we’re best friends and—“

Sherlock, overwhelmed and tired of doing what John complained about and _wasting time_ , kissed him.

John threw his arms around Sherlock’s neck and pulled him close, trying to go from kissing to snogging, when three different people chose that moment to engage in rather aggressive throat-clearing.

“A real marriage,” Sherlock said as he pulled away.  “That.  I want that.”

“Good.  Right, then.”  John turned to the minister.  “Hurry, we need to get home.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

**5.** **Worship In the Bedroom**

John didn’t count on marriage to the love of his life feeling so _awkward_.

Sherlock got them a taxi in his magical way, and they bundled together into the back of it.  They sat on their usual sides, with the usual distance between them.  John glanced over at Sherlock and saw him admiring the ring on his finger.  He blushed and turned away, then examined the ring on his own finger: a simple gold band, perfectly sized.  He flexed his hand and moved it, comparing the gleam of the ring in shadow and light.

He looked at Sherlock, who was openly staring at him, and he smiled.  Sherlock blinked and turned away.

Several moments of silence followed.  The two men were nearly glowing with happiness, but there was also an almost insurmountable current of _What now?_ flowing through their silence.

“So, sex,” Sherlock said, and John almost swallowed his tongue.

“What?”

“Sex.”

“What about it?” John asked, almost defensively.  He turned again to Sherlock just in time to watch him deflate.

“Should I assume you have no interest in it?”

John watched him study his fingernails, then the fabric of his trousers, all the while gaping like a fish at his new husband.  “Do you have . . . _interest?_ ”

Sherlock frowned.  “I can delete it.”

“Can you?”

“No.  Not really.  But I’ve become rather accustomed to ignoring it.”

“And you don’t . . .want to . . .ignore it.”

Sherlock sighed impatiently and glared at John.  “What does it matter what I want, John?  You’ve told everyone who cares to hear that you’re _not gay_.”

“If anyone had implied it, I would have informed them that I’m _not straight_ , either.”

Sherlock blinked.  “What?”

John faltered.  “Okay, maybe I wouldn’t have, but it’s the truth.  I’m not gay, and I’m not straight.  But I wasn’t going to do anything to make you uncomfortable with my sexuality, no matter which direction it leaned, so I tried very hard to make it clear that my place in your life would take whatever form you wanted.”

Sherlock blinked, then he chuckled.  “And I did the same.”

“You’re still doing it,” John reminded him gently.  “So tell me, then: do you, Sherlock Holmes, want to have sex with me, John Watson?”

Sherlock smiled.  “Oh, god, yes.”

John felt the words slide across his skin, dark and silky and filled with promise.  “And you’ve, er, done that, before, have you?”

It was Sherlock’s turn to falter.  “Ah, no.  I have not.”

“Really?”

“What?”

“ _You_?”

“What?”

“It’s just that.  Sherlock.  You’re impossibly good looking.”

“I also am well-versed in boxing and Judo, and I have free will.  Nobody was going to have me without my consent.”

“And I have—“

“You have my full consent.”  Sherlock slid closer and placed his hand on John’s thigh.  “For anything you want.”

John shivered.  “ _Jesus_.”

“Not quite.”

John seized his hand and turned to him.  They were closer now, and he could feel Sherlock’s breath on his cheek.  His pale eyes were going dark with desire.  “Sherlock.  You have my consent, too.  For the rest of my life.”

Emotion washed over his husband as John watched, and Sherlock let him see it.  “John.”  His name sounded like a holy thing coming from him.

“I know,” John whispered as they turned onto Baker Street.  “I know.”

 

 

* * *

 

They climbed the seventeen steps to their flat and found it tidied, and a basket of food and beverages lay artfully arranged on the kitchen table.  The note pinned to the bottle of champagne read:

_Boys,_

_You didn’t invite me to your wedding, and that’s a shame, isn’t it?  You’ve always been my boys.  But I’m hoping that you’ll take me to brunch once you pull your heads out of your backsides, and you’ll let me know that it wasn’t intentional, and that we’ll have a proper party for you now that you’re really starting your lives together._

_~Mrs. Hudson_

_PS: This is a one-time thing.  I’m still not your housekeeper._

John laughed.  “Oh, god.”

Sherlock gave him an answering chuckle.  “It’s real champagne, too.  Bless her.”

John finally dared to, so he stepped closer to Sherlock, turning his face into his husband’s neck.  “That’s a good amount of food.  We won’t have to leave for at least a day.”

Sherlock turned into his embrace and slid his arms around John’s waist.  “Mmm.  I like where this is going.”

“It’s going to your bedroom.”

“ _Our_ bedroom.”

“We should talk about this,” John whispered as he unbuttoned Sherlock’s black jacket.

“We really shouldn’t.  We have much better things to do,” Sherlock murmured as he returned the favour.

“Later then.”

“Yes.”

They were quiet as they rid each other of their fine suits, stopping often to see each other, to see what they were doing to each other, and to kiss and touch and grin and sigh and kiss.  Sherlock found it unbelievably easy to surrender himself to this physical pleasure, the touch and taste and smell of _John_ all around him, his smile, his soft moans as Sherlock stroked up his back, as he explored that gunshot scar on his left shoulder with his fingers and tongue.  He’d always imagined that sex would be horribly embarrassing, opening himself that way, being vulnerable to someone else, utterly stripped of his battle dress, his armour.  But he had made his vows, the best vows of his life, and John had given them back to him.  He trusted John, and that made this fun and pleasurable—

John bit down on Sherlock’s right nipple and he gasped.  _So pleasurable._

“Bed, Sherlock.”

Sherlock blinked his eyes open to discover that he was still in their hallway.  They hadn’t even opened the door to the bedroom yet.  He groaned.  “It’s so far away.  Let’s just do this here.”

John laughed, a bright, happy thing.  “No, you nutter.  Bed.”

They tumbled together through the bedroom door and maneuvered to the bed, kissing and clutching at each other.  Sherlock felt like he was wrestling a bulldog, a greedy, hungry bulldog, and the helplessness of the moment only magnified when he realized he didn’t know where to go from here.

“Sherlock?”

He blinked his eyes open.  John’s brow was furrowed.  “What?”

“Stay with me, okay?  We won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I want everything.”

“Not all at once, hey?”

“I want to give you everything.”

“We aren’t going to start with everything.”

“Why not?  Isn’t that how consummation works?”

“Sherlock.”

“What?”

“I’ve—I haven’t done this, with a man, since I was a teenager.  You said you haven’t done it at all.  We’ll start slow.”

“Dammit, John, I don’t want slow, I want all of you, I want to eat you and swallow you and have you live inside my skin . . .”

John’s eyes closed.  Sherlock realized he was on his back on the bed, his husband propped over him, one hand buried in his hair.  The hand in his hair clenched slightly, then let go as John rolled off.

“John?  What did I say wrong?  Tell me.”

“Nothing, Sherlock.  If you meant it, you didn’t say anything wrong.”

“Of course I meant it.”

John had his back to him, and Sherlock could see his back rising and falling unevenly.  Sherlock recognized the signs: John was fighting off tears.  “God, Sherlock.”

“John, please.  Let me see you.”

John turned to face him and Sherlock saw glittering tears in his eyes.  He wiped at his eyes, apparently furious with himself.  “Sorry.”

Sherlock stopped him and moved his hands away from his face.  He took John’s face in his hands and finished the job, wiping away the tears with his fingers and kissing away their tracks.  “Never apologize.  Never hide.  I’m in love with you, all of you, and I want to take care of you.”

John nodded.  “Kiss me, Sherlock.”

He did, gladly, and he learned as he kissed, paid close attention to John’s shivering and whimpering until John was under him, writhing on the bed, his hips twitching under Sherlock’s own, his erection straining against his pants.  “John,” Sherlock gasped, “pants.”

They each removed the last of their barriers and came together again, and suddenly this was easy, this was so easy it seemed a crime.  John asked for lube, and Sherlock gave it, and John gave him an astonished look that Sherlock kissed away, then John squeezed some lube into his palm and slicked them both, then he took Sherlock’s hand and guided it to their joined cocks.  Sherlock gasped.  It was so frighteningly intimate and yet so entirely right.  He closed his eyes and he felt like he was dreaming, the best sort of dream, full of freedom and the East Wind blowing through his hair.  They stroked together and Sherlock climbed the wind, feeling a delicious build in his belly, and John was whispering to him “Breathe, Sherlock, breathe,” so Sherlock did, and he could hear John breathe as well, and it was like grace and sunlight on his face.  John began to drive his cock into their joined hands, and the sensation of him rutting against Sherlock made him feel desirable, sexy, a little dirty, and—

“Sherlock,” John gasped.  “Open your eyes for me.  I want to see you, this . . .this first time, please.”

John opened his eyes and there was John, under him, his eyes dark and sparkling, and when he saw Sherlock his hard breathing turned into moans.  Sherlock kissed him gently, and John moaned.  “Oh, God,” he cried, lurching up into Sherlock’s embrace, “I love you, you’re beautiful, Sherlock, mine, you’re mine, always . . .”

Sherlock felt something grip him deep inside, and then he knew things were tipping outward, he was going to orgasm in front of another person for the first time in his life, it was inevitable.  “John, I’m going to, John, don’t stop.”

John’s free hand came around to grip Sherlock’s backside.  “Yes, give it to me, God yes, come, Sherlock, I’ve got you, my amazing love, please.”

“John!” Sherlock cried, then he seized, took a deep breath, and came directly onto John’s belly, his hips bucking wildly, his mouth wide and gasping against John’s own.  It felt like everything inside him was shattering, but not in a bad way, in a way that meant there would be something wonderful to see when all the detritus cleared.  Sweet freedom sang in his veins as the orgasm ebbed, as the aftershocks took hold.

“God, Sherlock, oh God, that was . . .Jesus, I’m coming,” John gasped, and Sherlock caught hold of himself enough to open his eyes and watch as John came undone, his teeth clamped together and his eyes blinking open and shut, his hands on their cocks stuttering in an unfamiliar rhythm as John’s ejaculate joined Sherlock’s own, pooling together on John’s belly.

Sherlock collapsed into that mess and sighed.  Oxytocin.  That’s what this was, this permissive feeling that it was okay to be naked with John, pressed against him, their combined ejaculate seeping between their bellies.  He had allowed this.

He smiled.  He would continue to allow this.

John nuzzled up against him.  “Sherlock, I can’t breathe.”

“Oh, right.”  He rolled off to the side.  “Sorry.”

“Mm, don’t be,” John sighed.  “That was fantastic.”

“It was.”

John rolled into his embrace and kissed him softly.  “Let’s have a quick kip and do something else.”

“Mm.  I want to suck you, John.”  Sherlock grinned when John groaned.  “You have a delightful penis.”

“And I want to fuck you, because you have the most incredible arse in London.”

Sherlock growled.  “We’re going to be very wicked for a very long time.”  He yawned.  “Wait.  Dopamine.  Oxytocin.  This is just an ingenious new way to get me to sleep, isn’t it?”

John kissed his temple softly, and it felt like something out of a dream.  “Hush.  Sleep.”

“Sleeping is . . .boring . . .” Sherlock mumbled into John’s scarred shoulder.

“Mm hmm.”

“John?”

“Mm?”

“I haven’t said it,” Sherlock whispered.  “But I mean it.  I love you.  I mean that.”

“I love you, too, Sherlock.  Sleep.”

And Sherlock did.

 

* * *

 

 

They slept.  They ate.  They consummated in every way they could.  And when next they emerged from their flat, they took Mrs. Hudson to brunch and apologized, and agreed she might organize a proper wedding reception for them.

Harry didn’t attend, just as she hadn’t attended John’s first wedding or reception—because she was in jail for assault.  Once she was released, John and Sherlock tried to reconcile with her, but she moved far away and died alone at the bottom of a bottle.

John still dreamed of Mary and Sheryl, but it was like dreaming of old friends he’d seen off on a train and waved goodbye to.  They were dear to him, but they faded in the distance of his memory, and there was no bitterness, not anymore. John brought Mary a bouquet of yellow roses, and Sheryl a sprig of lavender, once a week for a year and then once a month for the rest of his life.  He did not try to dig them up from the ground.  Sherlock stood beside him and hugged him when he needed hugging and took him to lunch when they were done.  John made decisions for Sherlock when Sherlock wasn’t able, and Sherlock returned the favor.

They chased criminals until they couldn’t anymore, then they retired to the countryside.  John typed up dramatic new tellings of their cases and wrote Sherlock love notes that he hid in his husband’s coat pockets.  Sherlock kept bees, and experimented with different flowers and how they affected the taste of the honey, and he even produced small batches of honey for his neighbors in Sussex.  He whispered to John of his love, and John called him amazing and wonderful, which were confessions in his own language.

They grew old together, and they bickered, and they made up again, and they took trips into London to visit old friends and attend their funerals and leave flowers on their grave stones.  And when the time grew close for them, and their bodies started to fail, they made a vow that neither of them would have to live without the other.  Sherlock performed one last experiment to ensure the dose was right, and when John opened his arms to him on his death bed, Sherlock crawled in beside him and took his medicine and held his husband close.  John traced the long-faded scars on Sherlock’s back and Sherlock pressed his lips against John’s eyes.

They slept.  They dreamed.  And their dreams were pleasant, and never ended.

~END~

**Author's Note:**

> I think I crammed nearly every trope into this mess. Sorry.
> 
> UPDATE!
> 
> the inimitable [penumbra](http://archiveofourown.org/users/penumbra/pseuds/penumbra) has made art. I've inserted that art in the story. It's BREATHTAKING.


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